Vicious Hearts Preview

Chapter 1
Una

 

To kill monsters, you have to know the darkness.

You have to be comfortable in it. You have to be able to look over that edge and feel no fear.

Knowing darkness? I’ve got that covered. And I’ve been looking over edges since I was born. But it’s the feeling no fear part I’m currently trying to pull out of my ass.

Because right now, it’s taking everything I have—everything I am—not to run from this place of hedonism and sin, where the rich and the monstrous come to play.

To indulge.

To feed their darkest needs.

Around me, sultry trance music thuds at just the right volume from hidden speakers. Low, sensual lighting and occasional flickering candelabra cast deep, undulating shadows against the elegant, matte-black walls accented with gold and blood red.

Waitstaff dressed in all black with ornate if emotionally blank black masks covering their faces slip effortlessly from room to room of the club with trays of champagne, elegant cocktails, even narcotics. Similarly black-clad security personnel, bigger and more imposing than the waitstaff but wearing the same blank, expressionless black masks, hover discreetly just out of sight.

I shiver as I step from one room to the next, moving right by the impassive gaze of two of these guards. You’d never know if they were even looking at you, given the utter blackness of the eyeholes. Still, I can feel eyes on me as I keep my head held high and slip through the doorway.

They don’t know you’re a fraud. They don’t know you snuck in.

They don’t know I’m here to kill.

If they did, I’d already be dead, or whatever happens to mere mortals who manage to sneak their way into Club Venom—the hedonistic playground for New York City’s richest, most dangerous, and most deviant gods.

But they’re not looking at me out of suspicion. They’re looking at me because they’re men, and I’m wearing a dress that would be considered lewd if not pornographic in most settings. Not here, though.

Black, somewhat see-through, and tiny. A thin gold chain around the nape of my neck, beneath my pinned-up blonde hair, keeps two absurdly flimsy wisps of fabric over my breasts. Over part of my breasts. The two strips of lacy fabric delve down to meet just south of my navel, where the completely backless dress wraps around like a 60’s-style miniskirt that barely covers my ass.

The guards are looking at me from behind those blank masks with their all-black eyes because even in the low light, it’s obvious I’m not wearing a bra. They’re looking at me because I picked this dress specifically for the way the hem dances high on my bare thighs and leaves the bottoms of my ass cheeks exposed. Because of the black silk choker around my neck. Because of the sky-high fuck me strappy gold heels I’m wearing that still barely push me past five-foot-two.

Even for Club Venom, I’m dressed to kill.

Or rather, I just walked into a wolf’s den dressed as bait.

All part of the plan.

The room I step into has two clusters of deep red velvet sofas artfully arranged on either side of it. To my left, three older men with silver hair and monied, aristocratic jawlines chuckle and drink champagne. With them, two much younger women in dresses barely covering more than my own giggle and snort lines of cocaine off a silver tray.

Like myself, and like all the guests at Club Venom, they wear masks over the top parts of their faces—gold, all slightly differently shaped and ornamented. Some are accented with blood red, others with black.

At the couches, one of the girls lifts her head from the tray of coke and turns, brushing her nose before she crawls into the lap of one of the men and starts to kiss him voraciously. He growls, and when his hand slides to her ass and lifts the hem of her silvery, shimmering mini dress, my pulse thuds. He fists a handful of her hair, and suddenly, the hand at her ass winds back and comes crashing down with a sharp smack on her bare cheek.

She moans.

I almost do too.

Heat pools in my core, and my breath hitches. It’s impossible not to feel the sultry, depraved power of this place teasing over your skin and pulling at your darkest fantasies.

Even if—especially if—the ones you keep locked inside are darker than anyone could ever imagine.

So dark they might even make the regulars of Club Venom go pale.

Movement drags my gaze past the first couple, and my core clenches and my eyes go wide as heat floods my cheeks beneath my mask.

The second girl is now sandwiched between the two other older men, her dress slipping from her shoulders and revealing her full breasts and pink-tipped nipples. Her head lolls languidly back against the sofa, a soft moan on her lips as the two men kiss her neck and run their hands up her thighs and over her breasts. Her hands drop to their laps, rubbing as my pulse thunders in my ears.

I mean, I knew what Club Venom was before I ever stepped foot in here tonight. But knowing and seeing for yourself are two very different things.

I feel eyes on me again and my gaze rips away from the threesome to the couple. My face darkens with heat as I realize they’re both looking at me hungrily. The girl grins, raising a hand and beckoning.

Yeah, that’s a hard no for me.

Shivering, and embarrassed to realize just now I’ve been standing here just staring at them for a full minute or two, I quickly pull my gaze away and hurry from the room into the next. My face still throbs with heat, and I quickly pluck a flute of champagne off a passing tray. I slug it back, taking a shaky breath before I survey the bigger room I’ve walked into.

And instantly freeze.

Holy fuck.

The first room was mere foreplay.

I’ve just walked into a full-scale orgy.

Not everyone’s participating. In fact, a lot of the guests in the spacious, lavish room done up with couches, sitting areas, and a full bar are still fully dressed, and just watch.

It’s just that it’s slightly hard to miss the writhing mass of naked, sweaty bodies moaning and gasping and fucking in the middle of the room.

My wide eyes drink in the scene before me, something straight out of Eyes Wide Shut. My gaze slides from two blondes writhing on top of a muscled man with what look like Russian prison tattoos to a stunning brunette gasping between two Asian men with long hair tied up in knots and full-body Yakuza ink.

My throat tightens, my mouth pursing tight as the heat floods my face once more. Again, knowing what this place is and seeing what this place is are two extremely different things. I can tell myself I’ve prepared for this, or that none of this fazes me.

But I know damn well I just jumped into the deep end.

Club Venom is no regular sex club. It’s not even exclusive in the same vein of the myriad of other so-called “exclusive” clubs in New York, the ones that cater to rich Wall Street types or tech-bros. You don’t just have to be rich to get into this place.

You have to be twisted and dangerous.

You have to be a little on the edge.

And you have to be hungry for the forbidden.

Three things that describe the very monster I’m here to kill tonight.

Unless he kills me first, that is.

My eyes scan the writhing exhibitionists on display in the middle of the room, searching for him. Even though everyone’s wearing masks, I’ve studied him for weeks. I know the shape of his face, and I know exactly what tattoos he’s got under his clothes.

I don’t spot him taking part in the orgy. Which is good, because if he was it would make what I need to do here tonight exponentially more difficult.

I need him alone.

A hunter is patient, little bird. A hunter does not rush. Take your time. Wait, watch. Learn the prey better than he knows himself. It is then and only then, when you are more him than he is himself, that you strike.

I shiver, swallowing back the words echoing in my head from years and years ago, when another monster sought to mold Finn and me in his image.

Stay the fuck out of my head, Dad.

Shuddering, I yank my eyes away from the performance. Finishing the champagne in my hand, I exchange the empty glass for a full flute from a passing waiter. Then I begin to wander the perimeter of the room, forcing myself to walk slowly. To move with ease. To smile casually.

Like I belong here.

Like I have any business at all being anywhere near this fucking place.

Ignoring the nagging little voice in the back of my mind whispering to me that however dark my own depravities, and however twisted the fantasies in my head, that’s all they are and what should always remain: fantasies.

Fever dreams.

Forbidden desires, meant for me and me alone, never to be acted upon.

Because some dark fantasies are too dark to ever really explore, even here.

As if I even could.

I’m leaning against the bar sipping my champagne when I stiffen at a presence that slips in close to me. I turn, swallowing as I look up at a handsome man whose jawline and dark goatee suggest he is perhaps Middle Eastern.

He smirks, his darkeyes beneath his golden mask dropping down over my plunging cleavage and slightly visible nipples before landing on my wrist.

Specifically, the red band with the three gold lines wrapped around it.

I stiffen, my chest constricting as my gaze slips to his wrist, and a similar band—his red with three black lines.

Fuck.

“I was watching you taking in the fun,” he murmurs in an accented voice. He lifts a glass of what smells like scotch, sipping it as his eyes pierce mine. “Were you enjoying yourself?”

Maybe. But good luck getting me to admit that, even to myself.

Instead, I lift a dismissive shoulder.

“It’s not why I come here.”

He grins hungrily, his gaze dropping to my wrist again.

“Then why do you come here?”

I swallow uneasily. “I’m meeting someone.”

His face darkens.

“You’re not owned, though.”

What?

When my brow furrows, his eyes narrow.

“You aren’t owned. You don’t belong to anyone.”

I’m still trying to figure out what the hell he’s talking about when he nods his chin at my neck.

“You wear a collar, but it’s unadorned. It has no one’s mark on it. So, little girl,” he growls with an edge to his voice. “All I see is good little pain slut with no Master.”

I gasp as he suddenly moves right into my personal space, sneering down into my suddenly terrified face. I jolt as he grabs my wrist roughly.

“Now, you’ll come with—”

“Take your hands off of me.”

His eyes flash with the anger of a man who is unaccustomed to hearing the word no.

“Let me explain something to you, cunt,” he growls. “You’re in Club Venom, dressed like that, wearing this on your wrist,” he hisses, nodding at the red and gold bracelet. “So stop playing the brat role and come with me so I can mete out a lesson on your ass—”

“Remove your hand from her, or I’ll remove it from your arm.”

A cold chill jumps up my spine like a blade. Because I know that voice, after studying him for so long. I know the harsh edge to it, the Irish accent. I know the swirling dark power that comes with that voice, just like I can feel it radiating against the bare skin of my exposed back, like a cold, dark wind swirling from the mouth of a black cave.

The man in front of me, still gripping my wrist, scowls.

“We’re in the middle of a conversat—”

Only then do his eyes lift from me to the man behind me. And suddenly, his face pales. The sneer drops from his lips as pure, unadulterated fear bleeds across his eyes.

“My sincere—”

“I don’t want your apologies. I want you fucking gone.”

The man in front of me nods so vigorously it almost makes me wince. Then, without another word, his hand is gone from my wrist as he spins and hurries across the room and out another door.

Then, we’re alone.

Just me.

And the monster I’m here to kill.

One second ticks by, then another. My skin tingles from the malevolent energy humming off him against my bare back. Slowly, I swallow the lump knotted in my throat, steel myself, and turn to face him.

The second I do, every nerve in my body jangles. Every inch of my skin prickles and shivers. Every ounce of my willpower forces me not to shake as my gaze drags up over his black suit with the black shirt beneath it—no tie.

Over the immaculately trimmed scruff on his razor-sharp jaw and angular cheekbones.

Over the sinfully dangerous lips.

Over the mask, half gold and half matte black, with gilded roses and Irish knots adorning the edges.

Up to the piercing, venomously lethal green eyes cutting into me like two blades.

Cillian Kildare: head of the Kildare Irish crime family, literal psychopath, infamous devil.

And tonight, my prey.

I swallow again, raking my teeth over my bottom lip as I give him my best seductive look. Or at least, as seductive a look as I can manage, given the unblinking, slightly unhinged, psycho way those sharp green eyes are stabbing into me.

And it’s then, staring up into his strikingly gorgeous face and those dangerously sociopathic eyes, that it suddenly hits me exactly how unready I am for this. Despite all my preparation. Despite all the brutality and training hammered into me as a child.

It all comes crashing down as I lock eyes with the second most dangerous man I’ve ever stood before.

But I have to do this.

I have to do this.

So I smile again, batting my eyes at him from under the mask as I reach up to toy with my blonde locks.

“Thank you, for—”

“Don’t,” he growls quietly, his eyes still leveled right into mine.

I shiver. It’s like being stared down by a fucking tiger in the middle of the jungle at night.

“Really, I want to say thank you for rescuing me from that—”

“I didn’t rescue you, little girl,” he murmurs darkly, his eyes glinting right into my fucking soul and instantly turning me to molten lead. “I simply saw something I wanted, and I came to take it.”

My lips clamp shut, my body tensing up to try to stop the shuddering as the heat throbs in my core.

Stop it. Just keep talking. Keep him interested, so that you can get him alone.

“So, I’m what you want—”

“You don’t belong here.”

I flinch before I stop myself.

“I’m sorry?”

“I said, you don’t belong here,” Cillian growls, moving closer to me. But unlike the man just now who made my skin crawl when he moved close, when Cillian pulls closer to me, it’s as if something heated and sensual slides deliciously over my skin.

Raw power.

A black wave.

Fuck, I need to get my shit together.

I could try to lie or bullshit my way out of this. But that isn’t going to work. Not with him. So instead, I lean into it. I blush, biting my lip again in an exaggerated way.

“Yeah, it’s actually my first time here. Is it really that obvious?”

“Yes.”

No smile. No charm. No flirtation. He’s not looking at me like he wants to seduce me.

He’s looking at me like he wants to devour me. To swallow me down whole. And when I realize how dangerously excited that makes me, my core floods with shame.

I can’t feel that. Not with him. Not with what will happen next.

“Do you understand how this particular club’s wristbands even work?” he rasps quietly. “Or did you pick red with gold because it looked pretty?” He sneers out the last word, sending a chill up my spine.

I shake my head. “No, I know what they mean.”

“And you meant to pick red with gold.”

My eyes drop to his: red with black.

At Club Venom, red signifies a pain and control kink. Sadomasochism. The black lines signify a dominant.

My gold ones signify a submissive. And the lies I’ve been telling myself, that I only picked this particular band because I knew he’d be wearing red with black, quickly scatter like dust with how…right this band feels on me.

I lift a shoulder, locking my eyes with his piercing green gaze. This time the seductive gaze comes completely naturally.

“I did.”

His jaw clenches. His eyes flare with a devilish green power.

“You do not belong here, little rabbit,” he growls thickly.

“If you’re not interested, I’m sure I can find someone who is—”

I gasp, terror and excitement exploding through my entire body as his hand suddenly jerks up and roughly cups my jaw, making my eyes bulge in fear.

“Do you have any idea what the fuck you’re doing?”

No.

I smile coquettishly at him.

“Why don’t you come and find out?”

I gasp quietly, shuddering as he suddenly moves into me, lowering his towering, muscular frame so that his lips brush my ears, turning my knees weak.

“I play very rough, little girl.”

I shiver.

“You never know,” I gasp back. “Maybe I do, too.”

Lies. All lies. Because the truth is, I don’t “play” at all. Not like this. Not once. Ever.

But there’s a first time for everything.

My pulse skips when his powerful hand takes mine, pulling me quickly after him as he storms from the room and down a hallway toward the private rooms.

This is happening.

There’s no going back.

You have to know the darkness. You have to look over the edge.

To kill monsters, you have to be one too.

 

Ready for more? Grab the full book here.